Speaking of Pynchon… (SLPAD)

[Michael Bailey]

I was thinking of subjectively & non-rigorously going into Slow Learner a
page a day, unless somebody wants to start a group read of something…

Intro: not going to copy every page, but I think fair usage will let me
grab a lot just this once.


“AS NEARLY as I can remember, these stories were written between 1958 and
1964. Four of them I wrote when I was in college—the fifth, “The Secret
Integration” (1964), is more of a journeyman than an apprentice effort. You
may already know what a blow to the ego it can be to have to read over
anything you wrote 20 years ago, even cancelled checks. My first reaction,
rereading these stories, was oh my God, accompanied by physical symptoms we
shouldn’t dwell upon. My second thought was about some kind of a
wall-to-wall rewrite. These two impulses have given way to one of those
episodes of middle-aged tranquillity, in which I now pretend to have
reached a level of clarity about the young writer I was back then. I mean I
can’t very well just 86 this guy from my life. On the other hand, if
through some as yet undeveloped technology I were to run into him today,
how comfortable would I feel about lending him money, or for that matter
even stepping down the street to have a beer….”



1958 & 1964 - I was growing from a 3 year old little weirdo into a 9 year
old bespectacled full-fledged slightly bigger weirdo…


I wonder how many of us reread our own oeuvres, eg* our p-list postings.

Laura Kelber once told me to reread mine. Not to dwell on the physical
symptoms that idea *still* rouses in me - the text here gives us a clear
good example of WPWD.

(might do it anyway: I’m brave, moreso than then anyway, & sometimes do
have a spare moment)


The recurrence of the “86” meme - shoot, I had an insight about that the
other day!

I don’t think it was I Ching-related (how the 8s turn to sixes or something
like that)

Anybody got any good “86” stories?


* I once tried to tell a friend that “e.g.” stood for “es geht” in German.
He gave me the fisheye, so I looked it up to prove it, but as we all know,
that initiative faltered on the reef of actuality.

I’ve got a million of ‘em (slightly & not-so-slightly embarrassing stories)
- like peddling the same kind of action about the 2nd “r” in “entrepreneur”
-

 ☝️ unlike the ballroom in St Patrick’s Cathedral, there is one. I had to
stop being a denialist.


Excelsior! & so to bed.